My one liner: The Breath of Night by Michael Arditti digs deep into the Philippines, its culture, people, and politics, to give us a thorough examination of the conscience and appetite of the Church to help the poor and disenfranchised through armed struggle. A morality tale that sits in the grey area between good and evil.This is the third in an occasional series, Lessons from Fiction. The Breath of Night is a new book by English author Michael Arditti. It has been promoted, sorry, reviewed, extensively in the mainstream media already, such as the Spectator, the Independent, the Scotsman, the Telegraph, the Guardian, and even the Daily Mail Online. With such revered Thought-Leadership behind it, I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. Arditti raises important questions about the role of the Church and whether it should be more overtly political. In this article I would like to explore that suggestion. My conclusion is that economic intervention is more effective than political intervention and I have put some numbers around one of the examples in the novel to illustrate the point. If you have travelled extensively in developing countries (is it ok to use that expression any more ? I still like “Third World”, but that’s definitely off limits now), you will feel the smells, the sounds, the taste, the moisture, the “vibe” of Philippines, even if you haven’t been there, because it is just like all those other countries you have visited. “The pavement was almost as tricky to negotiate as the road. Ahead of them a man, wearing nothing but shorts, soaped himself nonchalantly as if he were in his own bathroom. To his left, three men played cards on an oil drum surrounded by a jeering an gesticulating crowd; to his right three women sat stirring brightly coloured stews an bubbling pots of rice while their children frolicked at their feet, perilously close to the wobbly stoves. All around them were stalls selling food, drink, scarves, T-shirts, sunglasses, lighters and pirated DVDs.” Scratch below the veneer of the (faux-)colonial hotels and malls catering to the whims of the newly-minted Global Traveller, and you find an incredibly complex society. Or, I should say, “societal structure”. An anthropological order that existed long before the colonial masters arrived and departed and continues to survive long after the arrival of “independence” and “democracy”. “Nothing in this country is the way it looks. You think that because the Filippinos have Spanish names and speak English that you understand them. Big mistake !”. In Arditti’s model, there are essentially five main actors and somehow, like spheres rotating around a central gravitational force, they seem to maintain an equilibrium with respect to each other: the Elite Landowners, the Masses (workers in the cities and workers on the land, if they can get work), the Government, the Church, and the “communist” Freedom Fighters. Revolutions and overthrows of the incumbent government come and goAquino for Marcos, in the period covered by the book), but not much really changes: “The most notorious Marcos ministers have been removed, but by and large the faces in both the Senate and the House of Representatives remain identical. The army has been granted immunity for all its crimes during the State of Emergency” Basically the Elite Landowners, control everything, and maintain their power structures through the tacit or not-so-tacit government of the day. The personification of the landowner is the haciendo, the proprietor of the hacienda farm estate, acquired originally by the conquistadores. The haciendo plays a benevolent role in society, because he provides work for tenants on his farm:“Don Florante is reputed to be one of the more enlightened landlords. He takes a paternal interest in his tenants, advancing them money for seeds and tools, selling them cheap rice during droughts, and standing as godfather to their children (which, here, involves far more than remembering them at Christmas and birthdays).” And the tenants themselves recognise, accept and even embrace their own role:“The farmers have a sense of indebtedness that goes way beyond indenture. They feel an almost mystical bond to the haciendos” Which is unfortunate, because economically, not surprisingly they are stuck: “The share tenant is vulnerable to the proportion of his harvest due to the landlord, and the leasehold tenant to a fixed rent that takes no account of the all too frequent crop failures.” I was fascinated by this statement, and since this article about lessons from fiction I would like to alight from the train here and just look into this a little it more: we will return to the Church and the Freedom Fighters later. Let’s analyse the above tenancy arrangements by putting some numbers on them. These are unresearched assumptions, but they should give us a flavour of what’s going on. I would be very happy to hear from readers who would like to challenge the assumptions or to provide better data to feed into the models. Imagine a household which is a tenant on the hacienda, and which is a family of 5. They harvest the land and for say four months of the year it produces an income. Based on the Philippines’ 2011 GDP per head of $2,400 I have assumed 3 productive members of the household, so a total of $7,200 produced by the household during the year. Assume that the household’s monthly expenses are $2 per person per day and 30 days per month. Thus the monthly expense is $2*5*30 = 300, or $3,600 per year. What happens under the first version described above, where the landlord takes a percentage of output ? Let’s assume the landlord takes 45%. Why have I chosen this number ? Well, without doing detailed research I have made the following assumption. It just so happens that at 45% the household is just about able to make some savings at the end of the year, amounting to $360. The landlord is the one with all the information: if he sets the percentage too low he is not maximising his profit; if he sets it too high, the tenant has no incentive to work hard. The tenant works the land in the Hope that he will put aside a meagre amount every year, and one day his family will be able to afford an education, or a life in the city. The landlord is the one dispensing the Hope. And indeed it seems to work. Look at Chart 1. Lo and behold every year the household’s wealth increases, up to a respectable $4,320 after Year 12.

Chart 1

But that’s not the whole story. What happens if the crop fails ? Again, this is somewhat unresearched, but let’s assume one total crop failure during the 12-year period. And let’s assume that there is a 75% probability of this happening, ie one total failure in a 12-year period (I did dig around a bit for some agricultural data, and I believe that’s not an unreasonable assumption). And let’s say that this failure occurs in year 7.What happens to our tenant household ? Well, on the one hand their savings will be wiped out, and the household will be put into debt. Let’s assume that they can borrow the money, but will need to pay an interest rate of 50% pa (a reasonable assumption, I think). Look what happens to their finances in Chart 2. Ouch. By the end of Year 12 our household is over $6,000 in debt.

Chart 2

So to re-iterate, although our model family has the Hope of steadily increasing its savings, in fact under our assumptions it has a 75% chance of ending up $6,000 in debt at the end of 12 years !Is it any better for the tenant to adopt the second model, and pay a fixed rent ? Suppose the landlord charges a fixed rent of $250 per month, regardless of output. In this case, the wealth accumulation is even better, there is more Hope for the tenant. Chart 3 shows that the family accumulates $7,200 at the end of Year 12:

Chart 3

How lovely.But look what happens (Chart 4) when there a crop failure. The rent still has to be paid, so an even bigger liability is incurred when the Year 7 income disappears. And the debt spiral at 50% pa interest rates take the household to a whopping $15,000 in debt by Year 12, although you would imagine they will have been evicted into destitution long before that.

Chart 4

Some Hope indeed that is being dispensed by the haciendos. More like the Hope that people have when they walk into a casino, when in fact the odds of coming out with any money are so overwhelmingly against them. In the novel Arditti examines in depth the role of the Church within a society such as this. Julian Tremayne, a Catholic priest of mid-ranking English aristocratic blood, leaves his home country in the 1970s and sets out for the Philippines to take up a posting there as parish priest. Over time, his pastoral duties bring him into contact with exactly the type of people described in the example above. Initially he plays the role that is expected from him, preaching to the congregation according to local custom, and providing food, shelter, medicine and money for those in extreme need. In this role he is very much part of the Church Establishment, which above all wants to maintain cordial relations with all factions in Philippine society. However, over time, Julian develops a closer relationship with the country’s Freedom Fighters, the New People’s Army or NPA, who are engaged in violent and revolutionary struggle against regime of the day (first Marcos, then Aquino). At first it is logistical support that Julian provides (e.g. transport and shelter). But he struggles increasingly with his conscience and feels that the Church as an institution should engage actively in the freedom struggle: “Poverty and oppression endanger the soul [of the rich] along with the body [of the poor]. A woman whose children are starving may break the seventh commandment, just as a man driven mad by tyranny and injustice may break the fifth. So as a priest, I’m obliged to concern myself with the here and now as much as the hereafter; indeed, the two are inexplicably linked. If a priest is to stand in the person of Christ, he can’t avoid being political.” Hence he becomes more actively involved with the NPA (it is ambiguous as to whether he actually engages in any acts of violence or terror) and is eventually murdered in 1989. The novel’s other protagonist is Phillip Seward, a young and out-of-work Art Historian, who has an emotional connection (you need to read the book to know why) with Isabel, the niece of Julian Tremayne, and her husband Hugh (who happens to also own a trading company that has extensive commercial interests in the Philippines). Isabel was particularly close to her uncle Julian. Isabel manages to persuade Hugh to bankroll an assignment for Phillip to the Philippines to report on an investigation that is underway there into whether Julian satisfied the requirements for being declared a saint. Progress on the investigation has been painfully slow and Isabel feels that Phillip would be able to provide an objective view as to what is going on, and maybe to speed it up a little. The story flips between Phillip’s 21st century induction to the country, as he uncovers Julian’s story, and the Julian’s letters, which tell his own story 30 years earlier. Arditti wants us to question the role of the Church, and whether it should proactively align itself with revolutionary causes. Is the Church by definition a political institution that must fight to prevent poverty as well as treating its symptoms ? Certainly in previous centuries, both the Protestant and Catholic Churches have been more explicitly combative. The author himself seems not sure of the answer: “I think that’s what Julian objected to. He didn’t want a world that was split into masters and servants. No, he and his friends wanted revolution. They were terrorists, even if they had no guns – and believe me, there are many who swear that they did. Suppose they had succeeded, what then ? They get rid of Marcos and end up with Mao or Pol Pot. Do you think the people would have been happier with that ?” Amongst all this ambivalence about political intervention, may I suggest an alternative route for institutions with the means, such as the Church. That is, that rather than pick political fights which may lead to worse outcomes and more destruction, such institutions can provide real economic assistance. Let’s go back to the example that we analysed above. The astute reader will have noticed what the real problem is (actually, there are two – answers on a postcard, please). The real problem is the interest rate that the household pays when it goes into debt. A somewhat topical issue on which the Church of England has recently expressed a view as well. Now, look what happens if the tenant can have access to cheaper credit, say at an 8%pa interest rate. Chart 5 applies this to the first example (tenant paying a proportion of output), but I assure it works for the second type as well. Et voilà ! A steady recovery back to prosperity.

This is the idea behind micro-finance, and there is no reason why the Church (or indeed any other religious institution) could not deploy its considerable balance sheet to become a serious micro-finance lender, not just in developing countries, but also in more developed markets.

Now that really would be putting its money where its mouth is.

There is no Wikipedia entry for this book. The Google Books link to the book is here.

My one liner: How do societies adapt to Disruptive Change? Exerting discipline through fear. Labour skills reflect society’s needs. Why “National Patrimony” matters. Being local versus global depends on society’s current needs. We are crucially dependent on our modern communications networks. Opportunity Cost determines Resource Allocation.Life Experiences give us important intuitive skills. Just some of the lessons learned from World War Z.As 2012 draws to a close, I have taken the opportunity to publish the second in the occasional series, Lessons from Fiction. The subject is “How Society adapts to Disruptive Change” The book which gives us some rich insights is World War Z (2006) by Max Brooks. Written as the account of an agent of the United Nations Postwar Commission, World War Z is a series of post-war interviews with all sorts of people from all over the world who lived through a fictional apocalyptic war. The war was a 10-year conflict against Zombies, following a Zombie pandemic which originated in China (and was originally covered up by the Chinese government), spread to South America via the illegal donor trade, and finally came to prominence following an outbreak in South Africa. Zombies are devoid of intelligence and are motivated only by the desire to consume human flesh. Shortly after being bitten by a zombie, a human will “die” and then become a zombie itself. The only way to destroy them is to destroy the brain. They do not tire, and are as strong as the humans they infect. At peak, there were 200 million zombies threatening humanity, and the book alludes to the human race coming to the brink of extinction.Here is a YouTube simulation of a Zombie attack (unrelated to the book), originating in Peru.

Which is obviously quite an unlikely thing to actually happen. However, it got me thinking what might be real-world applications.An interesting paper on the mathematics of containing a zombie outbreak is here. Its major conclusion is that only quick, aggressive attacks can stave off the doomsday scenario of the total collapse of society. The paper points to some possible applications of the analysis, including martyrdom-based religious extremism. Is that why we observe quick and aggressive military strikes against alleged terrorist strongholds ?And what of the current financial crisis ? “Zombie banks” was a term first coined by Edward Kane during the Savings and Loans crisis of the late 1980s. It describes an insolvent financial institution that continues to exist simply because it benefits from government guarantees of its ability to repay its debts. Such banks become a drain on the resources of the state whilst fulfilling no useful asset allocation function. Many commentators argue, and I agree, that much of our current financial system suffers from this malaise. Modelling the negative systemic impact of keeping zombie banks afloat (as opposed to letting them go) would I think be an interesting field of research. But that’s a digression. Back to the book. The personal accounts tell of people’s survival stories, their roles in discovering or overcoming the threat, and the social, geopolitical, economic and physical changes that people, nations, the environment went through during that period.Clearly an extreme fictional tale, but extremely well-researched, such that we may draw some interesting conclusions as to how societies behave during times of extreme disruption.Discipline can be exercised through FearThe Russian army had its own way of ensuring that its soldiers would fight for the cause. It stripped the soldiers of their own humanity, and their ability to decide for themselves. The result was total submission to the mission. An insight into how repressive societies coerce and co-opt their citizens into the national project, whatever that may be. The 20th century saw this on a grand scale, with millions of people induced to oppress and murder to compatriots so that they become collaborators in the scheme of the dictator. Decimation also incidentally appears in Roman and Greek mythology. The three Parcae were the Roman female personifications of fate (see previous post on this subject). Nona spun the thread of life, Decima measured the thread of life and Morta cut the thread of life. Not much research available on the internet, but it makes one wonder why the name of the preserver of life refers to partitioning into tenth parts.“To decimate… I used to think it meant just to wipe out, cause horrible damage, destroy… It actually means to kill by a percentage of ten, one out of every ten must die… and that’s exactly what they did to us… The Spetznaz had us assemble on the parade ground, full dress uniform no less… ‘You spoiled children think democracy is a God-given right. You expect it, you demand it ! Well, now you’re going to get your chance to practice it’… ‘What did he mean ?’We would be the ones to decide who would be punished. Broken up into groups of ten, we would have to vote on which one of us was going to be executed. And then we… the soldiers, we would be the ones to personally murder our friends… We could have said no, could have refused and been shot ourselves, but we didn’t. We went right along with it. We all made a conscious choice and because that choice carried such a high price, I don’t think anyone ever wanted to make another one again. We relinquished our freedom that day, and we were more than happy to see it go.”

The Parcae (Nona, Decima and Morta) by Peter Paul Rubens. They are spinning the Fate of Marie de' Medici. Decima is responsible for determining the fate of a person.

Labour skills reflect Society’s needsWhen disruption comes, the labour market changes abruptly. In a Zombie war, modern weapons do not work. Additionally, say goodbye to modern manufacturing methods, large scale agricultural production, non-essential service occupations, mass-media as a leisure pursuit. Gradual disruptions could also have this effect; if you believe that environmental or economic changes will in the future make people less mobile, then skills which emphasise real production and output will be more valuable than those which value intangible services or agency.“You should have seen some of the “careers” listed on our first employment census; everyone was some version of an “executive”, a “representative”, an “analyst”, or a “consultant”, all perfectly suited to the pre-war world, but all totally inadequate for the present crisis. We needed carpenters, masons, machinists, gunsmiths. We had those people, to be sure, but not nearly as many as were necessary. The first labor survey stated that over 65 percent of the present civilian workforce were classified F-6, possessing no valued vocation. We required a massive retraining program. In short, we needed to get a whole lot of white collars dirty.”One by-product of this could be an improved sense of emotional well-being, with people feeling that what they do is socially useful. The evidence on this is not clear-cut either way. Some studies suggest that once basic human needs are met above a certain level (measured by GDP per capita) then there is no international correlation between happiness and income, although within countries rising income is related to rising happiness (the so-called Easterlin Paradox). Others argue that there is indeed an international correlation also. Not for debate here, but it does seem intuitive that what people value is "relative" well-being. In a world where everyone has more equal personal wealth (in this case because of the need to fight a common enemy), then they derive more utility from contributing to their local community. Certainly the author seems to imply that people are happier when they are more connected to their community.

Under what circumstances could this vocation become desirable ?

“I met one gentleman on a coastal ferry from Portland to Seattle. He had worked in the licensing department for an advertising agency, specifically in charge of procuring the rights to classic rock songs for television commercials. Now he was a chimney sweep. Given that most homes in Seattle had lost their central heat and the winters were now longer and colder, he was seldom idle. “I help keep my neighbours warm,” he said proudly. I know it sounds a little too Norman Rockwell, but I hear stories like that all the time. “You see those shoes, I made them,” “That sweater, that’s my sheep’s wool,” “Like the corn ? My garden”. That was the upshot of a more localised system. It gave people the opportunity to see the fruits of their labour, it gave them a sense of individual pride to know that they were making a clear, concrete contribution to victory.”The modern communications network is irreplaceableSatellites are used for a number of civilian applications: navigation and positioning; communication (including telephony, internet, television and radio); weather forecasting; earth mapping (including agricultural yields, forestry, and geology). Not to mention military uses. All of our modern communication depends on them: the world as we know it would literally fall apart without them. In the novel a team of astronauts mans the International Space Station (ISS) in order to keep a small number of satellites in orbit. The team was not guaranteed any passage back to earth, but given the importance of keeping satellites working they decided to stay on the ISS anyway….

National Patrimony determines economic well-beingOne of the biggest lessons of World War Z is in my opinion the importance of a term which I think is much under-used “National Patrimony”. The concept is has been the subject of a previous post, Why the West rules…For Now, and it refers to the accumulated store of a country’s wealth and resources. In its narrowest definition it may consist of natural resources and financial holdings, but it should really be broadened to cover the entire endowment of attributes and heritage that a country possesses, for example its culture, national identity, homogeneity, role of government, integration with other countries.In today’s globalised world Cuba’s isolation and self-dependence in relation to the above attributes has been very much a handicap. In the post-apocalyptic world physical and cultural isolation, a nationalistic mindset, disproportionate investment in healthcare, and the psychology of being accustomed to face a common adversary, all became important assets in the flourishing of Cuba as the world’s wealthiest country. This is surely true of any era in time. When analysing the relative outlook and capabilities of different countries, do we not put too much emphasis on flow items (deficits / surpluses, income levels, growth items, outputs, etc) ? Surely in any era or cycle it is the National Patrimony of a country that determines its economic well-being.“Cases were small and immediately contained, mostly Chinese refugees and a few European businessmen. Travel from the United States was still largely prohibited, so we were spared the initial blow of first-wave mass migration. The repressive nature of our fortress society allowed the government to take steps to ensure that the infection was never allowed to spread. All internal travel was suspended, and both the regular army and territorial militias were mobilized. Because Cuba had such a high percentage of doctors per capita, our leader knew the true nature of the infection weeks after the first outbreak was reported… By the time of the Great Panic, when the world finally woke up to the nightmare breaking down their doors, Cuba had already prepared itself for war… The simple fact of geography spared us the danger of large-scale, overland swarms. Our invaders came from the sea, specifically from an armada of boat people. Not only did they bring contagion, as we have seen throughout the world, there were also those who believed in ruling their new homes as modern-day conquistadors.”

Catedral de San Cristobal, Havana. And Cuba as the world's financial centre ?

Opportunity Cost determines Resource AllocationThe first thing that my Economics teacher at school taught us in our first lesson was: “There is only one cost which matters: Opportunity Cost.” Governments and administrators face choices all the time, since they do not have infinite resources. In the Zombie attack the realisation that governments came to was that it was impossible to protect and save the whole population. And, more objectively, once you have decided which cohort of the population you are going to save, then the remainder can actually be turned into an asset to fight against the threat by acting as a decoy. In the book, all governments eventually adopted a version of the “Redeker Plan” as first developed by Paul Redeker during the apartheid era in South Africa.Brutal and chilling, yes. And clearly much too extreme for any peace-time decision making. However, it does remind us government policy-making must by definition favour one group over another. This could have profound implications in areas such as healthcare, where currently most governments do not explicitly allocate resources based on quantitative measures of their outcomes. Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) were an early attempt at this (what will be the patients quality of life and how long will he live, if you apply a given treatment ?), and some stories in the media suggest that hospitals do operate such policies unofficially. I think that with budget constraints in the future, such resource allocation will become more explicit. “This is where [Paul] Redeker stepped in. His revised Plan Orange, appropriately completed in 1984, was the ultimate survival strategy for the Afrikaner people. No variable was ignored. Population figures, terrain, resources, logistics… Redeker not only updated the plan to include both Cuba’s chemical weapons and his own country’s nuclear option, but also, and this is what made the “Orange Eighty-Four” so historic, the determination of which Afrikaners would be saved and which had to be sacrificed… Redeker believed that to try to protect everyone would stretch the government’s resources to the breaking point. He compared it to survivors of a sinking ship capsizing a lifeboat that simply did not have room for them all. Redeker had even gone so far as to calculate who should be “brought aboard”. He included income, IQ, fertility, an entire checklist of “desirable qualities”, including the subject’s location to a potential crisis zone. ‘The first casualty of the conflict must be our own sentimentality’ was the closing statement for his proposal, “for its survival will mean our own destruction.” Orange Eighty-Four was a brilliant plan. It was clear, logical, efficient, and it made Paul Redecker one of the most hated men in South Africa.”Life Experiences give us important intuitive skills

Fengdu Ghost City, China

The experience of the older generation is to be highly valued. Regular readers of this blog will know that I rant about the inexperience of the 40-something world leaders that we have these days. What happened to the 60 and 70-year olds who have seen the world, achieved something in alternative careers, and truly understand how the world works ? In World War Z, these were the people who understood the true ferocity of what was about to happen. Sometimes it is just intuition. One of the first interviews in World War Z is with a Chinese doctor called to an outbreak in Fengdu, where nobody yet understands that they are faced with a Zombie outbreak. But one old lady senses something serious is about to happen because she has seen calamity many times before…“I’ve never see Fengdu as anything but a cheap, kitschy tourist trap. Of course this ancient crone’s words had no effect on me, but her tone, her anger… she had witnessed enough calamity in her years upon the earth: the warlords, the Japanese, the insane nightmare of the Cultural Revolution… she knew that another storm was coming, even if she didn’t have the education to understand it.”And finally...Many more accounts in the book than alluded to in this review, and much to reflect on. Which makes this book a sci-fi / fantasy novel that is eminently accessible to the Reader on the Clapham Omnibus.The Wikipedia link to the book is here.There’s a movie due out in June 2013, by the way. But it looks like it doesn’t really follow the structure of personal accounts where the outcome is already known. It seems more like Brad Pitt Saves the World. Which is fine I suppose. Here’s the trailer…

I decided it would be fun to experiment a little. So I am launching an occasional posting entitled: “Lessons from Fiction”. Part 1 is called: “A beginner’s guide to convicting an innocent man”.

The novel which I use as the basis of the case study is Arthur and George (2005) by Julian Barnes, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2005. There is much to this book that is not described in this review, but I will focus on how society, procedure, the police, and a docile court conspired to convict a respectable and innocent man of a series of animal mutilations.

George is an English solicitor practising in Birmingham, and son of the Vicar of Great Wyrley. He grew up in that country parish in the mid-nineteenth century, and was brought up to be fiercely patriotic: “And what is England, George ?” “England is the beating heart of the Empire, father”.

He is respected in his profession, he keeps his head down, he commutes every day by train from Wyrley to Birmingham.

He has his practice, and then for pleasure he has railway law. He is perplexed, with all the thousands of journeys that are undertaken by train, why there is not a legal guide available to all commuters informing them of their legal rights as against the railway company. He eventually compiles and publishes “Railway Law for ‘The Man in the Train’ – Chiefly Intended as a Guide for the Travelling Public on All Points Likely to Arise in Connection with the Railways.”

George is modest of manner and does not indulge himself: “He has no need or desire to take part in sports, to go boating, to attend the theatre; he has no interest in alcohol or gourmandising, or in horses racing one another; he has little desire to travel.”

So, clearly someone who does not inhabit society in a conventional way. But what is it about George that really makes him an outsider ?

Today if you want to trash someone’s reputation, even a stranger, you can print wild allegations about them on the internet. Bloggers and commenters seize on it and rumour rapidly becomes fact. Unless they have deep pockets their chances of suing for libel before damage is done is very remote. Of course, in the 19th century, before the days of the internet it was much harder to do this, right ?

A troublemaker maid at the Vicarage is dismissed by the Edaljis and shortly thereafter abusive graffiti about the Edaljis starts appearing across the neighbourhood. Then a large stone key left on their doorstep which George is all but accused by the police of stealing and then “finding”himself.

Next, anonymous letters. Vitriolic. (“Every day, every hour my hatred is growing against George Edalji”. And your damned wife. And your horrid little girl. Do you think, you Pharisee, that because you are a parson, God willabsolve you from you iniquities ?”). Praising the police, and the Sergeant who has been pursuing George, defences of the maid, insane hatred of the Edalji family, religious mania. Items start to get delivered to the Vicarage, including dead animals and excrement.

And finally hoaxes of maximum public impact. A local farmer shakes the Vicar’s hand one day after church and congratulates him on his new business, showing him the advert in the local paper inviting “Eligible Young Ladies of Good Manners and Breeding” to meet “Gentlemen of Means & Character” by applying to the Rev S Edalji at the Vicarage. The newspaper will not print a retraction “as it has its reputation to consider, and telling the world it has been hoaxed might undermine the credibility of its other stories.”

A curate from another parish is furious at being summoned to the Vicarage to perform an exorcism and demands his expenses be reimbursed. The Vicarage is offered out for all manner of goods and services (including as a low-rent lodging, and for stabling facilities). When the Vicar hits back and publishes details about the hoaxes in the local paper, a new advert appears “admitting” the hoaxes and seeking forgiveness. The advert is purportedly signed in the name of George Edalji and another local youth.

The damage has been done. Regardless of how outrageous the hoaxes are, an Outsider has been created, and enough doubt about the probity of Edalji has been sown in the minds of the General Public.

Step 3: Pre-Determine the Outcome and Create the Crime

After two years of persecutions, during which the threats become more serious and murderous, the Vicar approaches the Chief Constable again. The response betrays the intention: “I do not say that I know the name of the offender, though I may have my particular suspicions. I prefer to keep these suspicions to myself until I am able to prove them, and I trust to be able to obtain a dose of penal servitude for the offender.”

George probably knows deep down that his goose is cooked: “I think, to be honest, Father, the Chief Constable might be more of a threat to me than the hoaxer.”

The hoaxes abruptly stop for a few years. George qualifies as a solicitor. He still lives at the Vicarage, takes regular walks in the surrounding country lanes, opens his own office in Birmingham, and publishes “Railway Law.”

Then the mutilations begin – the fictional version of the true story of the Great Wyrley Outrages.

Horses, sheep, cows ripped in the stomach, mostly occurring during the first week of a month, all within a three-mile radius of Wyrley. An extremely sharp implement has been used. Police deliberations: “some ill-feeling a few years ago...black man in the pulpit telling them what sinners they were...this fellow – the son - does he look like a horse ripper to you ?...Inspector, let me put it this way, after you’ve served around here as long as I have, you’ll find that no one looks like anything. Or, for that matter, not like anything. Do you follow?”

Step 4: Abuse a Flawed Procedure

It appears that a hundred years ago, procedures for collecting evidence were not particularly well developed. So having pre-determined the outcome the police now went about gathering evidence. The anonymous letters re-start, and one contains a threat to shoot a police officer and twenty wenches. “Threatening to murder a police officer. Put that on the indictment and we’ll be able to get penal servitude for life.”

The police hypothesize a fictitious “gang” operating in the area, including the mutilator, the letter writer, the postboy and the co-ordinator. But one name comes up consistently - George Edalji. “There was a campaign of letter-writing before, mainly against the father...We nearly got him at the time...Eventually I gave the Vicar a pretty heavy warning...and not long afterwards it stopped. QED, you might say...”

But most importantly there is the insight into the total disregard for proper procedure. “What you did was catch a fellow, charge him, and get him sent away for a few years, the more the merrier.” So the police agree to have George followed and the Vicarage staked out. George of course tries to continue as normal,“as is his right as a free-born Englishman”. He is outraged at the waste of public money used in trying to have him followed by police officers day and night.

And then the police visit the Vicarage while George is out and intimidate the family. They do not have a search warrant, but they ask to search the house “to exclude [George] from the investigation if possible”. They ask to see George’s clothes. And his razors. It transpires that George borrows his father’s razor rather than having one of his own - “Why do you not trust him to have a razor ?”. George has an old house-coat hanging by the back door that he never uses and is completely dry - “Why is your son’s coat wet ?”. It has loose thread on it – “It appears that there are pony’s hairs, blood and saliva on this coat”. George’s daily walking boots are handed over – “Why are his boots encrusted with mud ?”.

Quarantine the suspect under police orders. The family was instructed not to make any contact with George until given police permission.

Step 5: Restrict the Freedom of the Accused

George is soon arrested at his office. Fatally, he says to the officers: “I am not surprised by this. I have been expecting it for some time.” More insinuation at the station: “Did you wear this shirt in the field last night ? You must have changed it. There’s no blood on it.” And so, as he is moved back and forth from his police cell, his interrogation continues in the same vein, innuendo, unsubstantiated allegation, wrongly attributed motives.

But George is optimistic: “those tormenters and these blunderers had delivered him to a place of safety: to his second home, the laws of England...The police had no evidence against him, and he had the clearest proof of an alibi it was possible to have. A clergyman of the Church of England would swear on the Holy Bible that his son had been fast asleep in a locked bedroom at the time when the crime was being committed...Case dismissed, costs awarded, released without a stain on his character, police heavily criticised.”

But from the newspaper the next day, a press release from the prosecutors, selectively quoting fabricated or tenuous evidence, with the newspaper adding the spice of the headline to catch the reader’s attention: “VICAR’S SON IN COURT:....So far as can be ascertained at present the result of this search is a quantity of bloodstained apparel, a number of razors, and a pair of boots, the latter found in a field close to the scene of the last mutilation.” Hence guilt is already fixed in the mind of the public.

At his bail hearing, bail is set by the magistrates to be much higher than expected, “given the gravity of the charge.” George refuses bail.

Then the trump card at George’s committal hearing (where magistrates decide whether to commit to trial). Add in a charge that is so serious that the Magistrates cannot possibly discharge George, namely that of threatening to murder a police officer by shooting him. “Shooting him? Shooting SergeantRobinson ? I’ve never touched a gun in my life, and I’ve never to my knowledge laid eyes on Sergeant Robinson.”

Needless to say, George is indeed committed for trial, after committal proceedings which include a handwriting expert, a 14-year old schoolboy and his classmate who have been on the same Birmingham train as George a dozen times, and a couple of local yokels who saw George out on a walk on the night of one of the mutilations.

Step 6: A Court with no Legal Expertise

The author gives us some nice Dickensian-style metaphorical names. Acting for the Defence is solicitor Mr Meek, with barrister Mr Vachell. The barrister for the defence Mr Disturnal. The Judge is Sir Reginald Hardy. Ah yes, the Judge. Just before the trial is about to start Mr Meek comments to George that it is a little unfortunate that they have been assigned Court B rather than Court A. The reason why this is unfortunate is that “Court A is run by Lord Hatherton. Who at least has legal training.”

“You mean I am to be judged by someone who doesn’t know the law ?”

The story presented by the prosecuting barrister Mr Disturnal is clearly made up, and clearly has no merit, “but something in repetition of the story by an authority in wig and gown made it take on extra plausibility.”

The trial proceeds. The handwriting expert is recalled, and again testifies in detail that the letters are in George’s writing. The house-coat becomes “wet”rather than “damp” in the police testimony. A junior officer claims to have found a muddy footprint in the vicinity of the last maiming which matches George’s boot. Counsel Vachell for the defence picks holes in the numerous procedural flaws in collecting evidence, but these will be lost on the jury.

And finally, Shapurji Edalji, George’s father. Called as a witness. The prosecution’s case is now firmly that George left the house in the middle of the night to undertake the maiming. Since George shares a bedroom with his father, and the door is always locked surely his father will testify that he did not see his son leave that night, in which case they “will have to claim that a clergyman of the Church of England is not telling the truth.”

Of course, the cross-examination proceeds nothing like this. Shapurji crumbles, and Disturnal sows enough doubt that Shapurji can’t possibly have known for sure that his son remained in the room.

If the reader was any doubt beforehand as to what the verdict would be then he is no longer. Only George himself is still sure he will be acquitted. And so his seven-year jail sentence begins.

Step 7: No Judicial Appeal

There was no Court of Appeal at the time. Appeals were only heard by the Home Secretary, but he has thousands of cases on his plate, and typically no judicial training. Letters and expressions of support do arrive, and newspaper campaign is begun in his name. The fact of the matter is though that the man is already ruined, reputationally, financially, and emotionally, not to mention the effect on his family.

Arthur (I will leave you to read the novel to find out who Arthur actually is) finds out about George’s case, and takes up the challenge of proving George innocent, both through meticulous evidential examination, and through ramping up the media campaign. Again, you will need to read the book to learn whether the campaign is successful.

The Lessons for Today’s World

Of course, this type of abuse of process doesn’t occur any more in civilised countries like the UK. After all, the events described took place over 100 years ago, and many changes have been brought in since then. And one couldn’t possibly imagine a situation in civilised society today in which:

- The prosecuting body pre-determines the outcome and then goes about collecting the evidence to support its case.

- A single body is responsible for collecting evidence and presenting it to a judge, and is permitted to present it in any way it deems fit.

- The body responsible for collecting the evidence is the same body which publicises its version of events, before the defendant has public right of reply.

- The body responsible for collecting the evidence effectively also has the power to restrict the defendant’s right of movement and comment prior totrial.

- The body responsible for collecting the evidence abuses its own procedures.

- The judge is not legally qualified, and does not require standard procedures of evidence collection to be followed.

- The executive and / or legislature is involved in the decision-making.